Recently, I was assembling a few galleries and found a few shots that Sol shot and wanted to share with you.  Let this be a little motion motivation for you :)  Here are 3 frames where a flash helped act as the shutter and freeze the action involved, just enough so the ambient and movement patterns would leave a ghosting look.  This technique is easy to follow, drag shutter, add flash :)   low power flash preferably.

She has done very well capturing motion…

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I was looking over my wife's shoulder as she was working on a recent wedding... She is just on fire with some of her attempts with flashflavor recently. Specifically, I was noticing that she is doing a brilliant job of fooling the eye. I wrote about her attempts to lead the eye out of believing that there is any flash involved in this past FF article. Here, she is at it again with a pretty nice portrait attempt.…

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While I am in the US, I am giving a small chat about getting the flash off the camera at the local Pictage user group meeting (pug) at Java Vino tomorrow at 7pm in Atlanta GA. These meetings are set up by Pictage so that users can get together and network and talk about business. I'd love to invite you to join us! Please come to visit if you can :) The meeting is at: THURSDAY June 5th 7pm-9pm at Java Vino in the room upstairs! 579 N. Highland…

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Well, I must say that I'm impressed by all of your creativity with ideas on how to light this setup. Everyone who commented has a great idea and we all have respect that there is no right answer on how do to this stuff... matter of fact, I'm a bumbling idiot at most of my weddings with last minute inspiration to do whatever it is that I do... I'm liking all the suggestions, even the one of attempting to light the ocean. I'd be curios to try this setup at an upcoming wedding. Possibly a blue gel?…

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Have you ever shot people toasting at a wedding? Every shot it from below? Yeah, we probably all have. If you haven't yet, give it a whirl. If you use on camera flash and just blast them with light, it will be less desirable and likely a whatever photo, not getting a lot of interest. This technique will help you visualize how to take a normal / standard exposed moment that you have seen a million times and add a little flavor to it. First step is to make sure you have evaluated the surroundings…

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I was unloading batteries today after a recent shoot. We stage all of our gear on a table as we pull old batteries out and put new ones in. I looked down at our equipment pile and got to thinking about a Flashflavor post. Since ALL our gear is mixed up, how the heck do we know whose is what? Once you start to build a nice equipment inventory, its about darn time that it get cataloged or labeled so you know what ya got! We are a studio with 4 maybe 5 shooters at a given time. It is crucial to us…

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I am very excited to see the birth of the Radiopopper this year. This write-up will serve as a initial preview of my experience with this revolutionary unit. In order to give a full review, I will need this baby on a few of my wedding gigs. I hope to be shooting with them at my first few weddings in April. We haven't used TTL at a wedding with off camera slaves in a long long time. Heck, I can't tell you when. I love to change up my game, so the popper is an exciting new tool in my tool box! We…

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We have been very lucky in a sense that our clients commission us to fly all over the world and shoot in some super exotic places. One of the requested sessions is typically an after wedding session where there are no rules and the dress likely will end up in the sand or swimming in the ocean. This allows for total creative freedom. I wanted to share another one of these sessions we shot recently in the Dominican Republic. We ended up spending the whole day with these folks driving across the entire…

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How much can I begin to say about the fun that we are having with our subjects. Our clients are escaping to a wonderful destination location and planning the wedding of their dreams. Why not dream a little more and go out on an exotic excursion to be photographed in the land of fairy tales? This is exactly what we are doing with our sessions and I often need to pinch myself. Picture yourself in the middle of a muddy deep dark hole and bats are flying around, everywhere. Watch out, if you step in…

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Have you ever been shooting and had this miracle blessing where an off camera strobe (not your intentional flash) just appeared from the background / foreground and illuminated your frame, thus delivering a magical image that was totally unplanned and seemingly excellently executed? If so, then you should be thankful to be LUCKY :) Well, in our few years of shooting we have been lucky enough to see a random strobe appear. In this photo example, Sol…

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I just wanted to say thank you David Hobby at Strobist for your kind words and recognition. David has helped both Sol & I achieve publication in 3 magazines, around the world... all in the last 2 months! David Hobby is one of the super heros of internet marketing. If you sell anything marketed to photographers, you should be advertising on his site. He has zillions of readers and…

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This last week, Sol Tamargo & I were in Mexico City covering a traditional Mexican ceremony. What is totally odd about that is the fact that we shoot 50+ weddings in Mexico every year and rarely is ONE of them a Mexican client. These guys had 400 guests with pretty beautiful decor. The bride's preparation took place in her parents home in a very exclusive home in suburb of the city. How many times have you seen the dress hanging? Did you…

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I was looking at one of our recent weddings where Sol Tamargo had spent some time with the bride who was getting ready at the Buckhead ATL Ritz Carrolton Hotel, who was heading downstairs for a ballroom wedding and reception, all at the hotel. For those of you who have been to similar city hotels, you may find that there inst too many places you can go for awesome setup shots.... Often enough, on the fly is the way you need to work. In this…

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We are moving towards doing 100% destination weddings, BUT, we are still contracted here and there to shoot in a big church or cathedral, where you can expect DARK dungeon type lighting. I always find it a challenge when the ceremony starts at 7:30 pm in the summer, Catholic service, so you are easy looking at 1 hour ceremony and 15 minutes of formals... Basically, there is NO natural light outside for any bride & groom shots... oh well. Pull out the

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I shoot some pretty direct flash, as hard as the light may be sometimes...i kinda like it. I've heard talk about photographers that use hard light and it seems that sometimes it may be frowned upon...My take is "who cares". If you have had a chance to dig through my stuff, you will find a portfolio with some hard light hanging around. I'd say the edgy feel sorta defines my style a bit. You can always migrate to a bounce flash and soften the situation quite a bit but, most of the time, I'm on the…

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We use our remote flashes to tell stories about our subjects, and in this case, I was again inspired by the flash inside the frame to post another one of Sol Tamargo's image sets. This post is about using the off camera flash more dynamically when that flash is located directly across from the field of view of your lens. Sol had her eyes on these children the entire time as they played with their toys all night long. I credit her for pursuing a strong photojournalism moment and then going one step…

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Ok... still on vacation :) last day. I am in the hotel getting ready for 6 hrs of flying today and 3 or so hours of airport layover. I was inspired by the last post "rim light" and decided to discuss the technique of including the flash burst INSIDE the frame. I have used this compositional technique "what feels like a million times" and each time I do it, I am trying to use the burst to strengthen the moment...…

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This one is short and sweet because I'm headed on vacation and I don't have too much time here so I just figured I'd get to the point.. Happy Accidents, thats all... Yep, they happen to everybody just about every day. Sometimes you don't even realize they are happy until AFTER the wedding... At that point, you can put them into your reserves and turn a happy accident into a sweet moment! In this photo example, Sol was shooting a portrait moment with her bride who was patiently waiting for her call…

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Before I get into another post, I wanted to invite everyone into the classroom for a lighting shakedown. Do you want to learn strobe lighting? Visit Strobist | Lighting 101 which I thought was GOLD until Strobist | Lighting 102 came out... 102 is just an overview at this point BUT still super valuable... David Hobby…

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Photographers have long known about the magical time after sunset sometimes known as the "magical hour" or the "golden hour". In this time, it is said that the colors and the quality of light will be tip top. I am often in the Riviera Maya shooting and that particular coast looks east mostly so we end up waiting for the sky to change colors. I am a big fan of the 30 minutes after sunset and the next 30 minutes after that. This technique will improve your portfolio because it will enable the client…

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KIDS at weddings rock! If you use your imagination, you can make fairytale imagery! When shooting a reception, I'm pretty sure we have all noticed small children playing on the dance floor with no inhibitions..Spinning, jumping, rolling, twisting, sliding and always SMILING. :) PERFECT photo chance... I don't really like to stand anywhere for more than a few seconds while shooting as the shot angle & composition possibilities will start to grow redundant...so, we move around and change it up. With…

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I've been getting a few emails about who I am and what we do and where are we based out of.... I have been an Atlanta GA based wedding photographer for the last 5 years. Half of my weddings are destination weddings throughout the Southeast US... GA, NC, SC, FL Coast and the Caribbean and the Riviera Maya. My Homepage, www.mattadcock.com | www.mattadcock.com/blog One day a few years ago, I was introduced to one…

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My awesome photographer fiance, www.soltamargo.com & I shot a wedding on April 9th and ended up going back out the next day with the couple to do a trash the dress session in the middle of the Jungle in the Mayan Riviera. We decided to film a documentary movie (www.delsolphotography.com/ttd/ttd1) with our P&S camera while swimming in a Cenote with our 5d's. We live in Playa del Carmen and have a great…

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